Food heroes

Rick Stein’s Food heroes, Rick Stein, BBC Books, 2002

Another Helping, BBC Books, 2004

We really enjoyed both seasons of this Rick Stein series and we bought, or perhaps were given the book from series two. We cooked from it a lot and later bought the book from series one. We rarely cooked from this one.

I flicked through the first book to see what we had already made. The splodges on the pages are a good indicator. I suspect we have made the barbecued, butterflied lamb w garlic, lemon and thyme, p101 and I’m sure we’ve made the navarin of lamb “printanière”, p110. We’ve not made any of the recipes for pigeon, hare or wild boar. I remember chorizo and butter bean stew w garlic and thyme, p119. What else might appeal?

I had been looking for something to make with some black pudding I had in the freezer and discovered pan-fried chicken breasts with muscat wine and black pudding, p78. For two, pan fry a skin-on chicken breast until the skin is crisp and the chicken cooked through. Thinly slice about 100g black pudding into 8 slices. Remove the chicken from the pan and keep warm. Pan fry the black pudding in the same pan.

Add 100 mls sweet Muscat wine to the pan and deglaze the pan, reducing the wine to about 2 tbsp. Add 100ml reduced chicken stock and boil for a couple of minutes. Whisk in 20g butter, add 1 tsp lemon juice and season. Stir a handful of tarragon leaves into the sauce. I served with roasted potatoes and asparagus.

On soup Monday, I made potato and watercress soup, p29. For four, melt 50g butter in a large saucepan and gently cook 2 diced onions until very soft but not brown. Roughly chop 200g watercress and add half of it to the pan with the onions, add 75g Agria potatoes cut into smallish pieces and 1.2 litres water. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer until the potatoes are cooked. Tip everything into a blender and add the remaining watercress. Blend until smooth then gently reheat with 150 mls cream. Season and serve. The texture was lovely and the pepperiness of the watercress shone through.

This book has a lot of meat recipes and recipes for game and fish we don’t get here. I tried hake w sauce verte and butter beans, p57. I couldn’t get hake, so I bought snapper with skin on as suggested. There are quite a few steps to this recipe, but it’s not really complicated especially if you break it down into sections. I would have soaked and cooked the butterbeans however dried beans are really hard to get at the moment so I opened a tin, rinsed and set them aside to drain.

For the sauce, I put all the ingredients, 15g each of flat-leaf parsley, chervil. tarragon and chives, 25g watercress, 25 g baby spinach, 2 egg yolks, 2 tsp lemon juice, 1 tsp Dijon mustard, 1/2 small clove of garlic, crushed, with a pinch of salt into a food processor and blend together for a few minutes until smooth. With the motor running add 300 ml olive oil in a slow steady stream until the sauce has a thick mayonnaise consistency. Transfer to a bowl, cover and chill until needed.

To make a court bouillon to cook the fish, simmer 1.2 litres water, a slice of lemon plus the juice, 2 bay leaves, 6 black peppercorns, 1 small, sliced onion, in a large shallow pan for about 20 minutes.

Now the recipe says to cook the fish, skin side up in the court bouillon, for 4-6 minutes. And here comes the flabby skin dilemma. I suspect the skin is left on so that the delicate fish doesn’t break up in the liquid, so I did it, but I had to take it off to eat it. There was no picture in the book, so I didn’t see how it was intended to be presented. While the fish was cooking, I warmed the butter beans in a pan with a little butter, 2 tomatoes, seeded and diced, a pinch of chilli flakes and a tbsp. chopped English parsley.

Serve the beans and fish with a good spoonful of the sauce verte. This sauce was so good I added a good deal more. I served the remainder on a lunchtime plate of roasted potatoes, with falafels and salad, and just generally dolloped it on anything I could think of. This sauce is going to become a regular fixture on my table. The recipe is also in Rick Stein’s Seafood, which I happen to have on my shelf. I don’t think I’ll repeat the fish with butterbeans. Nice but not my favourite fish dish.

And I moved onto Another Helping. I’ll be returning to some old favourites here as well. I really did give this book a good workout when I first bought it and there are a few old favourites in here. Some of them have crept into my repertoire and I haven’t returned to the book for a while. Some of the recipes will have evolved beyond recognition along the way.

We used to make the pizza margherita, p23 and this is where I learned about risi e bisi, p42. I have fond memories of warm roast chicken salad w tarragon dressing, p98, beef carpaccio, p112, grilled feather steak w anchovy butter, p114, beef stroganoff, p115, beef, Guinness and oyster pie, p122, Cumberland sausage w red wine, rosemary and lentils p145. As you can see, mostly meat. There are very few main meal vegetable options and those there are, are in the light meal category. I have never made any of the puddings but used many of the basic recipes and accompaniments at the end of the book.

I started with the baked guinea fowl with garlic beans and smoked sausage, p106, however, as I was unable to catch a guinea fowl, we had to be satisfied with chicken. I have no idea where I would even locate guinea fowl. I used chicken Maryland pieces, which I browned on both sides in a pan, then baked for about ½ an hour, covered, in the oven at 200°C along with a couple of garlic cloves, 25g pancetta and a sprig of rosemary. I added some pre-cooked borlotti beans, some sliced chorizo, 100 ml chicken stock, and salt and pepper. The recipe suggested haricot beans but I had borlottis in the fridge and I used chorizo rather than a smoked sausage, because I had one in the freezer. I cooked the dish, covered, for another thirty minutes. This was delicious in spite of the substitutions.

On soup Monday, we enjoyed the leek, carrot and pearl barley soup w peas and lentils, p35. For four, simmer a litre of chicken stock with 75g of a mix of pearl barley, red lentils, yellow and green split peas, 30 minutes until the pulses are almost soft. You could buy a packet of “soup mix”.

Add a sliced leek, a diced carrot, season and simmer, covered, another 15 minutes until the vegetables are tender. Add a handful of chopped curly leaf parsley and serve with crusty bread Perfect for the wintry weather we’ve been having.

We revisited the grilled chicken paillard w watercress and red wine dressing, p94. For two, put a chicken breast on a large sheet of cling film and cover with another sheet, then flatten it with a rolling pin until around 5mm thick – this is the ‘paillard’. We found one breast sufficient for two but if you want a second, repeat the process.

Put 120 mls red wine, (I used Cabernet Sauvignon), 1 tsp sugar and 3 tsp red-wine vinegar into a small, pan, and bring to the boil. Simmer until reduced to 3-4 tbsp. Pour into a small bowl and leave to cool, then stir in 4 tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp vinegar, a finely chopped shallot and salt and pepper to taste.

Heat a ridged cast-iron griddle smoking hot. Brush the chicken breast lightly with oil, season and cook for 2 minutes on each side (or as long as needed to ensure the chicken is cooked). Halve if you only did one, as I did.

Spoon the dressing into the centre of warmed plates and scatter with watercress leaves. Put the chicken paillard on top and drizzle a little extra virgin olive oil around the edge of the plate.

I served with potatoes Lyonnaise, p195, which are crispy sautéed potatoes cooked with onions. Sautéed potatoes are known in our house as Margie potatoes, named for the friend who taught me how to make them in 1981.

Before we moved on, we made la daube de boeuf Provençale, p116. This is a beef stew with a French name, possibly of a style often served in Provence.

For six, soak 15g dried porcini mushrooms in 150 ml hot water for about 20 minutes. Slice 900g blade steak and brown in batches in an ovenproof casserole. Remove the beef and set aside. Brown 175g bacon lardons then add a sliced onion and lightly brown. Return the steak to the pan and add a couple of sliced garlic cloves, 2 carrots sliced on the diagonal, 1 fennel bulb, trimmed and cut into wedges, 2 beef tomatoes, thickly sliced, zest of a small orange, the mushrooms with their soaking liquor, 450 mls of Cabernet Sauvignon and a bouquet garni. Season, cover and transfer to the oven. Cook at 140◦C for 3 ½ hours.

Make a persillade by coarsely chopping together a garlic clove, a handful of flat leaf parsley, an anchovy fillet, 6 capers, 2 pitted black olives. When the daube is cooked, skim off the fat and sprinkle with the persillade. Serve with mashed potatoes and a green salad.

These meals have been very satisfying, and this book will go back to its place for a while. I am looking forward to revisiting the other Rick Stein books on my shelves.